Four

TYPES OF GRIEF AND COMFORT STRATEGIES

As Fleetwood Mac’s “I’m So Afraid” played, the trio ascended the stairs to the restaurant’s mezzanine level. They walked past four TWA flight bags used by the Beatles during their 1965 United States visit. Only Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr’s bags faced forward. Jeff, Connie, and Phil sat at their table. Upon the wall hung the white Vox “teardrop” guitar played by the Rolling Stones’ Brian Jones, with clearly visible pick-marks on the body. Next to it hung a pho- tograph of Jones, standing in front of a studio console, holding this guitar. The waitress introduced herself. “Hi, I’m Barbara. I’ll be back in a minute to take your order.” Connie turned to Phil and said, “Maybe you can help me. I need your philosophical expertise.” Phil replied, “I’m out of philosophy. Now if there any 707s you want me to direct as they approach for landing, I’m your guy. Why don’t you borrow some of Jeff’s expertise?” “That’s just it: it’s Jeff’s philosophical training that I need to oppose!” Connie protested. “What do you want me to help you to do?” Phil asked. “Console Jeff,” Connie said. Jeff looked at Connie for her approval and asked, “Should I fill him in?” “Go ahead.” “Connie has been offering me some consolations, but I find them to be, upon the whole, unhelpful and irrational. Nonetheless, I desperately need to be consoled. I want to go on with my life and be happy and feel like a good person, but I’m so upset, so distraught. I can’t forget the past, I don’t even want to forget it, but I feel that no matter what I do, I’ll never be happy, that it’s too late for that, that the past will always ‘cast a pall over my future,’ that what I’ve lost and know another to have lost will always trouble me. I’m not even sure that I wish to recover. “The way I’ve been feeling reminds me of some things I’ve read about John Lennon. It’s funny. You both know how sentimental I am. Before mom’s death I used to feel some sorrow at Lennon’s death because I’ve en- joyed his music, admired his public positions, and he was a source of many pleasant childhood memories. But now that mom’s dead I have ‘no room left in my heart’ to feel sorrow about his death. In fact, in light of my mom’s death, I keep thinking that it was absurd that I grieved for a stranger, even slightly. Anyway, as I was saying, I’m reminded of some things I’ve read about Lennon. In a poem composed for a friend, Stu Sutcliffe, he wrote: 30 DIALOGUE ON GRIEF AND CONSOLATION

I can’t remember anything without a sadness So deep that it hardly becomes known to me.

“A year later, three days after Sutcliffe’s sudden death, John said to Sut- cliffe’s fiancée, ‘You can’t behave as a widow. Make up your mind, you ei- ther live or you die. You can’t be in the middle.’ And then, the last words reportedly spoken to John, by the police officer in the back of the patrol car 1 rushing him to the hospital after the shooting: do you know who you are? Just as John seemed undecided about his attitude toward grief by recommend- ing stalwartness to Stu’s widow but earlier confessing to great sadness, I don’t know who I am, or rather, I don’t know what to do. I hate my grief, but it seems inescapable. I don’t even want to escape it if the only way is by lying to myself. I want to do the right thing, if it’s not too late.”

Some Basics: Consolation and Other Comfort Strategies: Some Grief Responses and Objects of Grief

Phil rolled up his sleeves, which provoked a laugh from Jeff and then Connie, and Phil began, “First,” Phil requested, “What do you mean by ‘consolation’?” “I use it more specifically than the way people generally use the word. According to the way the word’s usually used, a consolation is a person or thing that alleviates misery or distress of mind. However, as I say, I’m using the word more specifically.” “Okay. How do you use it?” “By ‘consolation’ I mean an argument that grief is wrong or mistaken. This differs from the way that the word is usually used because my definition specifies how a consoler tries to alleviate distress. One way in which a person might try to alleviate distress is through reasoning, or an argument, that the distress is wrong or mistaken. It is this way which I call ‘consolation.’” Phil said, “Before I would even consider offering you any consolations, Jeff, I’d like to get even clearer about this definition. Let’s start with what you mean by ‘grief’ so that we understand what it is that a consolation is sup- posed to be alleviating.” Connie protested, “Come now, Phil! Although you’re fortunate enough to have both your parents and all other loved ones alive, you understand what grief is. It’s a feeling, a terrible feeling. Jeff won’t be helped by defining the word.” Phil replied, “I’m not being obtuse. We can’t begin to evaluate argu- ments against something we haven’t analyzed, even a little. Perhaps the thing a consolation is trying to alleviate is really desirable. I’m not being naive, either. I realize that, however we define ‘grief,’ it’s something which hurts real bad. But just how bad it is, and whether there’s any thing desirable about it remains to be seen, and initial definitions can’t hurt.” Then Jeff settled it, “Thanks for your concern, Connie, but Phil’s right. ‘Grief’ stands for different things. Before we can evaluate even one of them